Deníky 1912-1925 – Teige Karel (2022)

The edition of the diaries of one of the most prominent figures of the interwar avant-garde, Karel Teige (1900–1951), from the years 1912–1925 represents a unique collection of notes that Teige kept from his childhood to early adulthood. Initially in predominantly holiday and school diaries, which he wrote as a student at the Prague gymnasium on Křemencova Street, later as a university student, and especially as an artist and thinker reflecting on his artistic activities and on art and its place in society in general. The diaries provide a series of original notes commenting on both his personal life and his own artistic and literary creations, as well as on artistic and social events. Teige comments on his own reading, meetings, and correspondence, reflects on artistic and theoretical stimuli, and documents the author's defining role in organizing the artistic and art-political aspects of his generation. His travel diaries from 1922 and 1924 from trips to France and Italy are unique in their own right, particularly the diary from the autumn of 1925 from the journey of the Czechoslovak delegation to Moscow and Leningrad. Teige describes his stay in the Soviet Union, shares the enthusiasm of the builders of the young state, but also demonstrates features of utopianism typical of contemporary Western pro-communist visitors to the country...